X-47B becomes first UAV to land on aircraft carrier

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The US Navy’s current autonomous drone baby, the X-47B, has made its first successful landing on an aircraft carrier, which happens to be the first time in autonomous drone overlord history that such an event has taken place.

Back in May, the X-47B happened to complete the first successful flight of an unmanned, autonomous drone from an aircraft carrier. So, the X-47B can now take off from and land on aircraft carriers all on its own, likely marking the this recent landing test as the beginning of the enslavement of the human race by its glorious robot overlords. The drone is the first UAV that can take off, land, and refuel all on its own. Designing an aerial robot overlord cost contractor Northrop Grumman $813 million since it began work back in 2007 — perhaps less expensive than you might’ve thought a plane that could fly itself would be.

Though the military does have a host of spy and attack planes situated in bases across the world, being able to launch a covert drone from a mobile carrier greatly expands the military’s remote strike ability.

Thankfully, the autonomous drone does not have weapons capability as of yet — so we can all rest easy that Judgment Day isn’t exactly right around the corner. The next step for the X-47B is not installing those weapon capabilities, but to perform further refueling tests — weapons don’t mean much if the drone doesn’t have enough fuel to get them anywhere, after all. However, even though some more refueling tests are in the X-47B’s future, the US Navy feels that the UAV is ready for unmanned operations.